Friday, 21 February 2014

Been working on the cavalry rules. Play testing up till now has been strictly set piece. A group of horse charge a group of foot and that sort of thing.

Today was the first time they were used in a full Encounter.

This game featured Captain Renteen's company of the Ostarian Horse Marines trying to intercept the coach carrying the captive Baron Yippstadt deeper into the Otterman Empire. The strength of the enemy's escort was not known.

My force consisted of one officer, one serjeant and eight dragoon O.R.'s. The terrain, as may be seen from the photo above was rather cut into channels by steep hills.

My plan was to have the serjeant take half the troops and swing around from my left. Hopefully this would draw the enemy out, revealing the Possible Enemy Forces (PEF's), and with some luck, causing them to empty their firelocks.

Then the other half of the troop, led by Renteen himself, would advance up the center and send the otters packing.

The otter PEF to my left could not be placed out of sight of my pups, and so was immediately revealed.The PEF was reolved as a false alarm and removed from play. That left only two. One concealed in the rocky outcrop on the enemy side of the center, and one right by the coach carrying the captive aristo.

Serjeant Rottweiler led his section from the left as planned.

The PEF by the coach was revealed to be five otters and a dwarven serjeant.

The PEF in the rocks remained out of sight for now.

The otters were caught unawares, on the march. Never-the-less they reacted quickly, the front two and the serjeant firing. Well the serjeant tried to shoot but missed fire.

Both shots were well wide of the mark. Tow of my dogs took a received fire test and passed.

Now Renteen led his pups up the middle. With the front few otters already having fired and the view of the rest obscured, Renteen avoided any gunfire on the way in.

Both sides did well on their proximity tests and the horsedogs were in among the otters!

The first three dogs knocked down one otter in the front rank and proceeded on to the second.

More otters were knocked to the ground as the first wave completed its charge,

Now it was time for the two dogs of the second wave.

The second wave knocked down one more otter, and the serjeant as well, but the combat was not all one sided.

One of the otters managed to wound a horse. The dragoon was unable to control the beast and was thrown.

After the melee was resolved the knocked down figures were tested for recovery.

One otter dropped out of the fight, and one was shaken. The serjeant and t'other otter recovered fully, as did the thrown dragoon.

It was now the otters' turn.

The PEF in the rocks advanced and proved to be...nothing at all.

Three of the four remaining enemy had already fired, the fourth exchanged shots with a dragoon. Both shots missed.

That finished the first turn.

The otters activated first on the second turn...

...and fled the field.

Yippstadt was rescued and there was much rejoicing.

Quite a change from the previous game. Quick to play and very enjoyable

Luck was with the dogs this time as they caught the enemy off guard and in small numbers.

Having successfully torn myself away from the seedy underworld of Hong Kong on the Xbox for the moment its back to game development at last...

Work on the Napoleonic skirmish game has re-commenced.

This play test involved some new mechanics designed to capture the feel of sharp melodramatic action in the Napolonic era. In particular these entail a new simpler To Hit method, eliminating the need to keep track of who has a loaded weapon, and changes to the effects of Reaction Tests.

Although this game used my Flintloque figures, these were the only fantasy element in the game.

The encounter was a fairly straight Rescue encounter as found in the By Savvy and Steel rules as my intent here was to concentrate on the combat aspect of the game rather than worry too much about porting the game situations to the Napoleonic period.

I was very keen to try out some new concepts in sunny Spain. However as my boy had taken a fancy to the Otterman and Undead...

...and had set up the table accordingly for a short lived game...

... I decided on the sunny Balkans...

...instead.

Captain Buster of the Ostarian Horse Marines has been sent on a mission to rescue a VIDI (Very Important Doggy Indeed).

Baron Yippstadt had recently been abducted by Othari bandits and was being held in a village just beyond the Otterman frontier.

Buster took his command to within striking distance of his target and then proceeded on foot with six of his Chosen Hounds to effect the rescue.

Yippstadt was reportedly being held in the upper story of an inn that faced on the town square. There were, as usual, three Possible Enemy Forces (PEF's) deployed which could turn out to be anything from heavily armed troops to nothing but a case of nerves.

Buster made good progress at first, against a seemingly inactive, and hopefully inattentive, enemy.

However the number of PEF's had increased to five before a single enemy had been spotted.

In due course, Buster sent two of his hounds onto the balcony of the nearest building to suss out any enemy in the square...which were revealed to be five otters led by a dwarven serjeant.

In the opening exchange of fire the serjeant was shot down much to the dismay of his otters.

Soon the otters were taking fire from their left as well as their center.

The advent of fire from their left as well proved too much to bear.

The first group of otters was soon set to flight.

Meanwhile one PEF advanced towards the dogs on the outskirts of the village.

Having cleared the square, Buster took a pair of his dogs and readied to assault the inn.

The leftmost pair took up position ready to confront the approaching PEF. Unfortunately the pair had only one working musket between them.

Bursting into the inn, Buster was confronted by an ogre officer backed by three otters.

The otters fired first and Buster fell wounded!

As the wild melee broke out in the inn, the approaching PEF hove into view of the flankers.

Deceived! The dastardly otters had moved the Baron and were in the process of spiriting him out of town.

Yippstadt was being escorted by seven otters with an ogre officer!

The In sight dice were rolled, and the flankers backed by the reserve pair of hounds confronted the otter laskar.

Losses were suffered on both sides.

With no sign of Yippstadt at the inn, and with their beloved leader down, the center pair of hounds dragged Buster to safety.

The flankers and reserve were reduced to two hounds standing but the action took its toll on otter morale.

Fierce paw to paw fighting ensued.

One dog put down two of his foes.

When the dust cleared, two whipped hounds remained facing the ogre officer. The dogs had so far lost one officer wounded and two other ranks slain.

Otter pursuit was sluggish from the inn, and Buster was dragged to safety.

Unfortunately the ogre officer was able to steal Yippstadt away from the remaining dogs.

Defeat! Oh the Shame of it All.

Final tally was one dog officer wounded and two O.R.'s slain versus a loss of one otter serjeant and four O.R.'s wounded.

Eight otters had scarpered and my seven brave hounds had faced overwhelming odds in the form of 15 otters led by two ogres and a dwarf.

Still, odds are that the odds faced won't mitigate the defeat back at the Ostarian court.